[Political Activity Law]

126 MILLION REACHED.  NYT.  “Russian agents intending to sow discord among American citizens disseminated inflammatory posts that reached 126 million users on Facebook, published more than 131,000 messages on Twitter and uploaded over 1,000 videos to Google’s YouTube service, according to copies of prepared remarks from the companies that were obtained by The New York Times.”

CLEAR LAW URGED.  BB.  “The Internet Association, a Washington-based group with members that include Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., is advising lawmakers to clarify the responsibility of advertising platforms ahead of the companies’ testimony to Congress on the extent of Russian influence on their networks.”

SENTENCE IN CASE.  CN.  “A wealthy Mexican businessman was sentenced to three years in federal prison on Friday, more than a year after being convicted of funneling than $561,000 to political candidates in San Diego’s 2012 mayoral race.”

FARA COMPLIANCE.  POL.  “The Manafort indictment may lead firms to think twice before playing fast and loose with registering.”

KS: MONEY RACE.  CJ.  “Topeka mayoral candidate Michelle De La Isla’s campaign brought in more than twice as much in donations over the past three months as that of her opponent, Spencer Duncan.”

ME:  CASE CONTINUES.  PH.  “The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices on Monday unanimously rejected a request to postpone any potential action against backers of the York County casino referendum until after the election next week.”

MT:  STATE CRUSADE.  GOV.  “Montana has spent more than a hundred years trying to keep a lid on campaign contributions. It is still trying. Whether it succeeds could have repercussions around the country.”

NM:  THIRD COMPLAINT.  AJ.  “State Auditor and Albuquerque mayoral candidate Tim Keller is facing a third campaign finance ethics complaint, this one alleging that he failed to report debts or expenditures for the attorneys that have been helping his campaign address the other two ethics complaints filed against him.”

NY:  INVESTIGATION SOUGHT.  ND.  “The Nassau County Democratic Committee’s lawyer is asking the state Board of Elections to investigate a super PAC that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking Democratic county executive candidate Laura Curran and supporting her GOP opponent, Jack Martins.”

WA:  FINE PAID.  NT.  “Pierce County Democrats will pay more than $22,600 in fines and legal fees for breaking campaign-finance laws by repeatedly failing to properly report donations and spending over the course of three years.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.

MA:  OVERRIDE OPPONENT ALLEGATION.  SC.   “A state official is accusing Ralph Stefanelli, an outspoken opponent of last spring’s $2.2 million tax override, with violating state campaign finance law.”

MA:  MULTIFIRM LOBBYING.  BH.  “Some of Beacon Hill’s top-paid lobbyists have fattened their lucrative paychecks by working under multiple firms — a rarity in the federal lobbying world — and in some cases, raising concerns of potential conflicts between their well-played clientele, a Herald review found.”

NM:  VIEW AGAINST REPEAL.  SFNM.  “The only slight risk is a possible award of fees to the plaintiffs’ lawyers if the city should ultimately lose the suit, but for two reasons, this risk cannot justify the surrender that’s being proposed.”

NY:  TESTIMONY REVIEW.  NYP.  “CFB officials stopped short of saying they are opening an investigation into possible straw donations, which according to Rechnitz’s testimony enriched the campaign coffers of de Blasio and Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino.”

NY:  MAYORAL MEMORY.  NYP.  “The mayor on Sunday did not deny that he made the call to Rechnitz, saying only that he could not remember.”

SC:  REPORT SCRUTINY.  FN.  “Now, more than a year-and-a-half after Bingham abruptly resigned his post in the S.C. House of Representatives, his campaign disclosures are raising eyebrows for spending that has been reported.”

WA:  REPUBLICAN GROUP FINED.  AGO.  “The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) today announced that it filed a complaint in Thurston County Superior Court alleging campaign finance violations by the Clark County Republican Central Committee. Specifically, the AGO asserts the committee failed to timely report a total of $586,268 in contributions, and $463,079 in debts and expenditures since 2012.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.  

COMPLAINT ON DOSSIER.  FN.  “The revelation that Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund a salacious anti-Trump dossier last year is raising new legal questions for the Clinton team — with a watchdog group filing a formal complaint alleging they hid the payments from public view.”

LAW AND THE DOSSIER.  WE.  “Some experts believe Clinton and the Democratic National Committee may have violated a ban on foreign contributions to campaigns, though others disagree and emphasize potential disclosure violations by filtering payments through a law firm.”

PAC HEAD MOVE.  SFC.  “The chairman of a political action committee backing Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kelli Ward is assuming a senior role in her campaign, prompting questions about coordination between the groups, which is prohibited by federal law.”

EMBED 101.  POL.  “Facebook, Twitter and Google played a far deeper role in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign than has previously been disclosed, with company employees taking on the kind of political strategizing that campaigns typically entrust to their own staff or paid consultants, according to a soon-to-be released study.”

PUBLIC FINANCING PUSH.  IBT.  “These systems, which include government grants, small-donor matching, vouchers and tax credits, allow candidates who don’t have access to deep-pocketed donors — people traditionally underrepresented in the political system — the chance to compete with candidates who do.”

CASE DISMISSED.  BNA.  “The Federal Election Commission voted not to investigate allegations that a Florida real estate developer funneled illegal campaign money from Chinese nationals into a super political action committee that supported the 2016 Senate campaign of former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.).”

NE:  COMPLAINT FILED.  OWH.  “The complaint submitted Wednesday with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission says the state senator from Omaha improperly spent money he raised as a lawmaker on a public opinion poll for his gubernatorial campaign.”

RI:  TOUGH ENOUGH?  WUN.  “Over the last 15 years, since enactment of legislation levying fines in Rhode Island for delinquent campaign finance filings, only a small fraction of the fines has been paid, leaving in question the effectiveness of the process.”

ISR:  PREVENTING SABOTAGE.  VN.   “Israel is on guard against hacking ahead of the next general election, one of its most senior cyber security officials said, identifying Iran as posing the greatest overall risk to the country’s cyber security.”

HAVE A GOOD DAY.